“Miss Poindexter!” said the mustanger, gliding to the ground, and without making any acknowledgment to the plaudits that were showered upon him—“may I ask you to step up to her, throw this lazo over her neck, and lead her to the stable? By so doing, she will regard you as her tamer; and ever after submit to your will, if you but exhibit the sign that first deprived her of her liberty.”
A prude would have paltered with the proposal—a coquette would have declined it—a timid girl have shrunk back.
Not so Louise Poindexter—a descendant of one of the filles-à-la-casette. Without a moment’s hesitation—without the slightest show of prudery or fear—she stepped forth from the aristocratic circle; as instructed, took hold of the horsehair rope; whisked it across the neck of the tamed mustang; and led the captive off towards the caballeriza of Casa del Corvo.
As she did so, the mustanger’s words were ringing in her ears, and echoing through her heart with a strange foreboding weird signification.
“She will regard you as her tamer; and ever after submit to your will, if you but exhibit the sign that first deprived her of her liberty.”
Chapter Thirteen.
A Prairie Pic-Nic.
The first rays from a rosy aurora, saluting the flag of Fort Inge, fell with a more subdued light upon an assemblage of objects occupying the parade-ground below—in front of the “officers’ quarters.”